A Maximum Demand Coverage Model for the Optimal Location of the AMAT’s Bike Sharing Stations

Abstract

Abstract AMAT Palermo S.p.A. is the public transport company of the municipality of Palermo. AMAT manages the bike-sharing system and within a sustainable mobility project has involved the DSEAS and four secondary schools to the research project “GoToSchool”, a project whose main aim is to foster the use of the bike by the students in getting to the school. The project developed in two phases: the first phase was devoted to the estimate of the demand of bike-sharing service from the students; the second phase was committed to the study of an optimal facility allocation problem in order to maximize the demand of bike-sharing service arising from students. The optimization model can be easily customized to account for operational requirements from AMAT, such as, the maximum number of bike-sharing stations that can be installed according to the available budget, the inclusion or exclusion (“blacklist” or “whitelist”) of potential bike station places because of specific planning and organizational needs. Finally, the model provides a tool to evaluate some fundamental parameters such as the utility to reach school by bike, or the distances between the students home address and the places of the potential bike stations.